October 8, 2007

Creating a Problem While Ignoring the Real Issue

According to recently released statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), marijuana arrests reached an all-time high last year. This news comes despite a rise in violent crime for the second consecutive year. Yet, last year alone, 829,625 Americans were charged with marijuana offenses according to the recently released FBI Uniform Crime Statistics. Eighty-nine percent of those charges were merely for simple possession.

This begs the question: shouldn’t law enforcement focus on the rising violent crime rate instead of wasting precious resources and manpower going after people for marijuana?

Click here for the complete text.xxxOh, yes, let's ignore rape, murder and mayhem [which, by and large, marijuana users don't engage in] while spending energy and resources on people who possess plants. How insane is that?

I am probably one of the last qualified person to comment on this subject, but what a heck, that has never stopped me before!

You have more than two million of your citizens locked up in jails and prisons and, I bet, a large portion of them are doing time for drug related crimes. Outside of violent crimes, probably the last place to warehouse a person is the prison. They serve hardly any other purpose than incubate inmates to become more skillful criminals necessitated now by their other employment opportunities having been greatly reduced.

What about these international, super expensive drug wars that bring up huge headlines and prime time TV newscasts and barely make a dent in the supply on your streets? From where I am looking in, it all looks pretty goofy and so hopelessly misguided. I feel all this despite of my drug of choice being an occasional aspirin.

hi, Larry--that may be true in the short run. but, for every day they spend raiding med clinics, that's one more day the sniper in the tower spends on the streets. that can't make the streets safer for the cops, let alone the civilians.

and the cops DO take their marching orders from the DA's.

I take it back. I do know why the gov't prefers bigger prisons-- DA's want to be reelected and they don't want their opponents bandying about accusations like, 'soft on drugs'.

and that's just one more reason why this country isn't going to survive too much longer.

You, two crows, said; that's just one more reason why this country isn't going to survive too much longer.

Well, I don't know about that for I remember seeing your country in pretty bad shape before. Japan was supposed to have cleaned your clock already in the 70's but as we know, rumors of your departure were exaggerated. Granted, that some of your political movers and shakers have done their utmost to make you irrelevant. The enormous capacity of your people and innovative work that is still happening in the U.S.A., might be able to withstand even the assault of this latest installment of mad neoconmen.

I agree with Pekka whole-heartedly on the jail issue. It's ridiculous! All the tax money that is being spent on arresting, court, and jailing Americans for this issue is a ridiculous waste of American resources.

hi, Pekka--yes, this country has been in trouble before but, often, the trouble came from outside and we had resourceful people who had at least a modicum of moral character to combat the problems we faced.

when the problems are generated from within by people without morals they're much more difficult to overcome.

maybe we will survive. IF elections aren't suspended [something I would've thought impossible -- if I thought about it at all -- until very recently] and IF the next administration has the strength of character to release the powers that have been usurped by the current one.

my fear is that that combination of events won't be forthcoming.

after all, the history of the marijuana situation alone demonstrates how willing people in this country have been ignore the common good of the country to further their own personal gain. and that's just one minor example.

right on, M E--with things like education, environmental matters, disaster relief, the ongoing welfare of the people of our country, generally, in such dire need of funding -- the fact that our gov't instead spends its finite resources on unnecessary prisons is, itself, a criminal enterprise.

and, of course, there's the added benefit that the politicians can use the issue to get elected by, once again, playing the fear card -- which they still do in the face of all the scientific proof that it's not something to be scared of.